The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1887-10-05
POPULAR SCIENCE.

At least O,O0O preserved humming.
birds are now embraced in the collection
In the British Museum. The finest col
lection on this side Of the Atlantic, con-
tanning about.2, 900 specimens, has been
presented by Mr.. D. G.. Elliot to the
American Museum of Natural History in
New York.
Flour is like butter, it absorbs smells
readily. It should not be kept in place
where there are onions, fish, decaying
vegetables, or other odorous substances,
or in damp room or cellar. Keep it in
a cool, dry, airy room, not exposed to
freezing temperature, nor to one above
seventy degrees, and always sift before
using. x
A recent observer of sunhowers at-
tributes their antimalarial action to their
absorption of water from the soil, as well
as to their accredited properties of alb
sorbing malarial germs, and emitting
much oxygen. During June, 1885, q
quarter of an acre of sunhowers exhaled
in the form of vapor an average of sixty
five gallons of water daily.
The most sensitive instIument yet
made for measuring degrees of heat has
recently been exhibited at q soiree OF
the English Royal Society by Mr.. c.. v.
Boys, who calls it the "radiomicrome.
ter" Mr.. Boys is able to produce visi.a
BILE effect of heat on half-penny held
at distance of more than 1000 feet
from an ordinary candle fame.
Cotton, according to q scientific
authority, Is not fibre, but plant hair.
It holds to be spun into thread because
of peculiar twists in each hair, shown
! under the microscope, especially in polar
lied light. Linen thread may be spun,
because the fax fibres have certain rough,
nesses on their surfaces, which enable
them to cling together. Hence it is im-
possible to make as fine linen as cotton
cloth, but it is much stronger.
Mr.. Erie Bruce, who has worked out
the idea of signaling at night by cap.
tive balloon lighted inside by electric
incandescent lamps, has just completed
one for the Belgian government. The
signaling is effected by cutting off and
letting on the current feeding the lamps
by means of key like that used In
telegraphy. Mr.. Bruce's latest balloon
is fifteen feet in diameter and 2,000
cubic feet in capacity. It is made OF
vanished cambria and is translucent.
Six Edison and Swan lamps of eight
and ten-candle power are mounted in.
side.
M. Alphonse de Candolle believes he
has established as certain, by his re-
searches into the heredity of the eyes, the
fact that women have larger proportion
of brown eyes than men that where both
parents have eyes of the same color the
chances are eighty-eight to twelve that
the children will have, at ten years OF
age, eyes of the same color; and that
where the parents have eyes of different
; colors the chances are fifty five to forty
five in favor of brown as against blue OF
gray for the children. He also thinks
It probable that persons of the brown
type are more likely to be healthy than
the blonde. ...E
Russian archaologists, who are under
the patronage of the Gar, are working
throughout the empire or wherever the
imperial army open up new fields. They
have done much during the past decade
to illuminate dark blanks in Byzantine
and earlier records. One of the most In
teresting of their discoveries is just an.
nounced, At Tashkend have been re-
Gently found extensive Greek remains,
, chiefly terra-cotts vases, silver-gilt
ornaments, and small statuettes, all
purely Hellenic, and obviously bespeak-
ing a common domestic use. This dis
covery shows that the frontiers Of the
,, Greek kingdom in Bactr;a must have ex-
tended many hundred miles further
north. east than has heretofore been sup
posed. Probably it is the beginning OF
a series of developments giving to Central
Asia an entirely novel archaeological In.
terest. s.